At Last
by BurgundyHope
Summary: "Despite what Minerva had told Pomona and Filius not half an hour earlier, if she had her way, she would send all the students through the passage to the Hog's Head. Every last one of them."


A/N: after a long day away from home, I got back to my apartment eager to work on a OUAT drawing in my studio only to realize the lighting is terrible for the section of the piece I wanted to work on (I need new lights in my studio for working at night). SO, I used that creative energy to FINALLY finish up this one shot instead! I hope my exhaustion isn't reflected in what you're about to read haha And thanks to MandyinKC for helping me work through this piece all those months ago! (p.s. if you haven't read ManyinKC's stories yet, you are missing out BIG TIME - go check her out!)

A/N 2: all dialogue is taken from _The Deathly Hallows_

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"Absolutely not, Creevey, go! _And_ you, Peakes!"

Despite what Minerva had told Pomona and Filius not half an hour earlier, if she had her way, she would send all the students through the passage to the Hog's Head. Every last one of them.

The transfiguration professor continued directing underage students out of the Great Hall, Kingsley's baritone calling out instructions in the background. She wished they would all go, the older students as well, and leave the fighting to the ones who had been through battle before. The adults. _Who the bloody hell decided seventeen-year-olds were old enough to be adults?_

They were mere bairns, only children, and Minerva could all too easily imagine the horrors they would witness if they stayed. Although…no, they weren't entirely children any longer, were they? They had already endured far too much evil while at Hogwarts, the Hogwarts run by Snape and terrorized by the Carrows. Classmates had been forced to turn on each other, to torture each other or else be tortured themselves. They had been abused and berated by those in authority over them, authority figures they who they should have been able to trust. Her students had lived every day with a horrible uncertainty, not knowing who might disappear next or if their families were safe or if _they_ would be safe. An institution which had once been a safe haven for all children, regardless of their backgrounds, had turned into a breeding ground for hate and bigotry and fear.

Minerva's heart had physically ached each time she spotted a new bruise or clumsily healed wound on a student. Sleep had eluded her, worry chasing away any peace she might try to grasp, and when she did sleep nightmares plagued her – students tortured into insanity like Frank and Alice, Voldemort laughing over Harry Potter's lifeless body, Albus lying broken at the foot of the Astronomy Tower.

Minerva had intervened on her students' behalf when she could, but it was not nearly often enough. The Carrows seemed to be everywhere, and any confrontation with them had to be handled with care. Their short tempers and twisted minds made them highly unpredictable when provoked. And although Snape had showed more constraint, Minerva knew he held actual power, able to dispose of her or any of the professors if he felt they overstepped their bounds.

Minerva had not been able to adequately protect her charges the first eight months of the school year, and now here she was, sending them into battle. She wasn't sure how she could ever forgive herself.

Her demons whispered, _perhaps she did not deserve to be forgiven_.

Shaking herself from her reflections, Minerva turned to find Harry still stood near the Gryffindor table, his head on a swivel, looking for…what? Whatever it was, he wasn't going to find it in the Great Hall.

"Potter," Minerva rushed to his side. "_Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?_" She could have shaken him for the dumbfounded expression on his face.

"What? Oh…oh, yeah!"

"Then go, Potter, go!"

"Right – yeah –"

Minerva fiercely resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and, in the next second, stifled the impulse to wrap her arms around the boy before he turned and ran out of the hall. She watched him until he disappeared into the crowd, desperately praying he would live through the night.

Just then, panic threatened to overcome Minerva, tightening her chest and catching her breath, but she shoved it aside. Death crouched at the gates of Hogwarts, preparing to claim a school full of innocent children, and Minerva would be damned if she came undone. She had been cautious all year, keeping herself alive for the sake of her students, _keeping herself alive for this_.

That's what she had told herself – she had to watch them be tortured and punished and terrorized so that she could fight for them when it truly mattered. As if she hated herself more or less depending on the degree to which her students suffered.

But now, at last, Minerva felt free of all constraints, imagined or otherwise. She would rather die for each and every Hogwarts student than let them battle and kill and be killed. She let her anger rise within her chest. The guilt and self-recrimination and throbbing anxiety she had been plagued by every day since Albus' death gave way to a strength and righteous fury Minerva finally, _finally,_ felt free to act on.

Cinching her dressing gown tight, drawing her shoulders back, she gathered her assigned team together and prepared to head for Gryffindor Tower.

Tonight, Minerva would meet Evil on her own terms.


End file.
